2015 Mentors & Staff

Joseph PhelanReFrame Director

Joseph is a creative strategist with a long history working in and with racial justice and economic justice organizations. Prior to his current work as a strategic communications consultant for foundations and organizing groups, he was the Communications Coordinator at Miami Workers Center, and a founding staff member at Florida New Majority, where he built a communications shop that also served the Florida Immigrant Coalition. After leaving Miami, Joseph joined Caring Across Generations as the Communications Director, where we oversaw national communications strategy and supported state-based civic engagement campaigns. Joseph is an expert in strategy development, creative action design and communications training.

Jen SorianoReFrame Mentor; Lionswrite Communications

Jen Soriano is a Pinay writer and communications strategist originally from Chicago. She is a leader in the field of progressive communications, specializing in campaign strategy development and the integration of communications into grassroots organizing. In 2002, Jen co-founded the Center for Media Justice in Oakland, California, along with Executive Director Malkia Cyril. As sole proprietor of Lionswrite Communications, Jen has spent the past seven years helping dozens of organizations and campaigns strengthen their communications. She has worked at the local, state, national and international levels with immigrant rights, environmental justice, climate justice, farmworker, housing rights groups and more. These include: We Belong Together – Women for Common Sense Immigration Reform, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Causa Justa :: Just Cause, the California Environmental Justice Alliance and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.Before becoming a communications consultant Jen learned the ropes of in-depth reporting from fellowships at Mother Jones magazine and the Center for Investigative Reporting. In her spare time she practices what she preaches about framing for racial and gender justice by writing articles for Filipinas Magazine, Yes! Magazine, War Times, Stir Journal and the Huffington Post, among other outlets. Jen lives in Seattle with her husband Juan, their son Teo Simeon, and their cariñosa wise-mutt Kabu. She wants whatever you are eating right now, and would love to connect with you on Twitter @lionswrite.

Jung Hee ChoiReFrame Mentor

Jung Hee Choi has almost 20 years of combined experience in the fields of journalism, communications and social change. She has been fortunate to lead communications strategies for a variety of outstanding nonprofit organizations and labor unions on the front lines of social change in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. More recently, she spent eight years as the communications director for Community Coalition in South Los Angeles, building the organization's profile as a social change leader in Southern California and crafting innovative communications strategies for its campaigns to advance to racial and economic justice.

Currently, Jung Hee is an independent consultant who specializes in partnering with social justice organizations to boost their power and visibility by strengthening their communications capacity. She supports organizations in creating communications strategies, systems and infrastructure that integrate with community organizing and advocacy campaigns. Utilizing her many years of experience in leadership, she also provides consulting services to organizations on leadership development and training and organizational planning and management.

Jung Hee has a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and Master's of Arts in History from San Francisco State University. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

Mervyn MarcanoReFrame Mentor; Blackbird

Mervyn Marcano is a co-founder of Blackbird, a rapid-response initiative providing strategic communications, organizing and policy capacity in the Black organizing field. Mervyn has managed communications for broad public-private initiatives around housing and economic development in the San Francisco Bay Area; strengthened advocacy efforts for juvenile justice reform; and served as counsel during tough media cycles for both elected officials and labor unions. His prior work includes serving as Director of Communications for Communities Creating Healthy Environments (CCHE), a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that helped to make healthy food access in communities of color a priority for community organizing groups. Prior to that, Mervyn was Communications Director for ColorofChange.org, the million-member Black online advocacy group founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. During his tenure, the organization was highly recognized for its work on voting rights access and prosecutorial misconduct in the South.